Autistic, queer writer with mental health disabilities. I like to write about the historical context for modern ableism and policy issues affecting disabled people. Blog posts contain lots of heavy stuff like abuse and violence, institutions, and eugenics, for the record.

I received an email later telling me that my poems had touched their heart. It made the fear of standing up in front of people with that microphone, staring at the papers in my hands, trying to put conviction in my voice because I am the authority standing up there on the stage and I know being Autistic is not shameful and I know all the things that have been done to us, worth it.

Maybe, in poetry, the graphic or specific details don’t need to always be there. Maybe, in poetry, the conviction with which you say it will tell them it’s true, will tell them they should look into it, will tell them to presume competence and believe me and tell them that we are not suffering burdens

–and that we can love ourselves just as much as any non-disabled person.